What is the difference between silica sand and regular sand?

Answers

Typical beach sand is made from broken down quartz, or silica – this is silica sand. Sand is more or less defined as any small, loose, grain-like debris from rocks and there are many different types. While silica sand is largely composed of quartz, white sand is typically composed of limestone. Dark or black sand is usually composed of volcanic minerals, and there is even green sand that comes from olivine crystals (normally eroded out of basalt). Essentially, the type of sand simply depends on the mineral of which it’s composed.